Costco is where North American consumers prefer to fill their fuel tanks, according to a study by US customer intelligence company Market Force Information.

Traditional petrol stations lost out to wholesale clubs, with Sam’s Club coming in second among more than 7,600 consumers across the US and Canada.

QuikTrip, Wawa and RaceTrac were in third, fourth and fifth place, respectively. Costco also came out top in the same study last year.

The study was designed to uncover which petrol stations consumers frequent the most, as well as why they choose one over another. Market Force first calculated the rankings based on total votes, and then factored in the number of locations for each chain for a weighted view of the results.

Of the 53 chains studied, Shell initially amassed the highest number of votes, which can be attributed to the fact that it has more than 10,000 locations in North America. However, when viewed as a calculation of votes per location, Costco ranked first.

With their low prices and convenient petrol pumps, supermarkets and wholesale clubs are continuing to take market share from national petrol retailers. When asked where they most frequently fuel their cars, less than half (49%) said they go to a national petrol station chain, and 21% said they visit a local gas station.

Nearly one-third (30%) said they most frequently fuel up at either a supermarket or wholesale club. This is on par with the 2012 petrol station survey by Market Force when 32% said they fill up most often at a supermarket or wholesale club.